


Wake. Work. Rest. Repeat.

by soondubu



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cynicism, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 00:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18324905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soondubu/pseuds/soondubu
Summary: Five years later, and international relations had relaxed just enough to entertain the idea of Exo working as a group again. It came a little late, of course, with Minseok just finishing his enlistment, Junmyeon halfway through his enlistment, and less than a year to go before all of their contracts were to come up for renewal. Yixing still wasn't certain what to do about his. And it didn't help to have low expectations of what their first rehearsal together in half a decade might do to sway him. Or sway the others.





	Wake. Work. Rest. Repeat.

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [kpopolymfics2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpopolymfics2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> **10cm – "Help"**  
> [lyrics](https://popgasa.com/2017/08/28/10cm-help/) **|** [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnT9LmmlLXw) **|** [supplementary](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/03/ab/0e/03ab0e27baba9ba0fddd178850097731.jpg) \- [prompts](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/39/f5/33/39f5336cdf1c1dfbe3b6425ff4600d19.jpg)

Although it was surely something he should be accustomed to by now, Zhang Yixing wasn't so convinced that he'd ever be able to drag himself out of bed so early with any real ease. It came of long nights in front of a screen, alone in a nondescript room with blackout curtains. At the very least, he was unusually excited to be heading to the airport today, though that excitement lived alongside a fluttering anxiety he couldn't control. As he shuffled his way to the en suite to shower and brush his teeth, he paused first and just briefly at the toilet, wondering if he might see last night's dinner before this morning's breakfast. The feeling subsided though, rushing out like a wave at low tide, like his stomach past his knees when he dared to think of what the today would bring, yet he still decided that maybe it would be better to shower first, just in case.

Half an hour later, he was staring at his upright suitcase with something like resignation. He sighed. Packing it had been more of a last-minute nuisance than he'd intended, and all of his rolled clothes were sure to have wrinkles regardless. He doubted he might ever master the technique. Yet worries like that laid a path down a perilous road—one much longer than the road to the airport, and Yixing couldn't afford to miss his flight today.

  
  


❦

  
  


Five years later, Yixing could feel how acutely things had changed. There were fans at the airport, but nothing like there used to be. Perhaps he'd gotten too good at booking his travel too last-minute to be tracked. That persistent whisper in his head told him he knew the real reason why the only faces he saw were the steadfast few who'd stood beside him since the beginning. Even just being in Seoul, being allowed to exist in Seoul for longer than a layover, churned up a mix of nostalgia and heartache that wasn't altogether unpleasant. Still his nerves sat heavily within him during the cab ride from his rental to the studio. It couldn't be helped that they would be seeing each other again for the first time in years like this, dressed down and ready to learn new choreography. It couldn't be helped that even after so much waiting the group was somehow two members short. It couldn't be helped that a very real, very desperate part of him considered opening the car door and rolling out onto the sidewalk and making a break for it. All of this waiting...could the results even live up to the anticipation anymore?

Yixing braced himself before the door to the practice room, familiarity prickling the hairs along his arms. He suspected he was the last to arrive, only flying in this morning. A soft din murmured beyond the threshold, simultaneously beckoning him and filling him to the brim with dread. How would it feel for their voices to drop to the floor when he entered? Would he be surprised? Would it even upset him? What scared him more was the possibility that they might not even flinch. But he had to do something, didn't he? So he reached for the handle, twisted, held his breath, _pushed_ , and–

" _Finally._ " Of course Baekhyun's voice broke through first, full of sarcasm, mirth, and relief buried deep.

"I saved you a spot, Hyung!" Sehun chirped, patting a bare patch of floor beside him with a small, bright smile.

Yixing exhaled. He let his eyes land on each of them just once, trying to size up the ways they'd changed, especially those he hadn't been able to see in all this time, but it was too much to take in just then. So, instead, he smiled back at Sehun and gave a shallow bow of thanks. Instead, like with any other performance, he found his balance. Instead of running away, he stepped forward to fill in the space they had kept for him.

 

The hours didn't fly the way they used to, even with how far they had all come with their dancing. Were it not for the corticosteroids he'd been wise to take before hand, Yixing was convinced he wouldn't have made it even halfway through rehearsals. His tempo never quite synced with the others. His feet never quite landed on their marks. Jongin did his best to laugh it off with him with reminders that it was only the first time they were seeing this choreography, and Yixing had bitten back the remarks that crept to his tongue. Such jokes were easy to make when you were never the one halting a run-through.

At least it ended, eventually, and Yixing had his phone in hand to call for a car when Jongdae said, "Hyung, the van's this way." His bubbling laughter at the blank look of confusion on Yixing's face brought him back to a time long ago, when _eight_ was unheard of and _seven_ was unthinkable. It never occurred to him as he was ushered into the backseat that he had dismissed _nine_ outright, as if it had never happened at all.

Crushed in the back between Sehun and Kyungsoo, Yixing kept to his thoughts as the din returned, loud and full of far more energy than any of them should have after such a long evening. " _I'm happy you're back, Ge,_ " Sehun said softly, his barely accented Mandarin cutting cleanly through the noise like a cleaver. Yixing had no idea how to respond, though, so again only smiled and hoped the dimpling of his cheek might distract from the uncertainty in his eyes.

  
  


❦

  
  


The idea of coming back to a dorm-apartment was daunting in a way Yixing couldn't name. Had he become that much of a recluse? Did his hotel rooms spend so much time masquerading as studios that the concept of coming _home_ could be so foreign? Baekhyun prattled away as they came down the hall in a pack, explaining that since everyone was fine with their usual three-three split, that Yixing could choose whichever dorm he liked. As Yixing opened his mouth to explain his rental suite, Baekhyun held up his hand and said firmly, "You're choosing." Since there could be no argument, Yixing privately chose whichever dorm they were about to enter, but he would only share the decision under further duress.

The pressure was off for the night, though, as the seven of them filed in and shoes piled up by the door. Kyungsoo lingered behind to straighten them on the rack while Jongdae and Jongin and Sehun went immediately for the kitchen—for beer and for snacks since no one had done any proper shopping since they moved in. The responsibility for dinner fell on Yogiyo tonight, then, and the rebellious decision for fried chicken was unanimous. "What better meal to welcome you home?" Chanyeol and Baekhyun rationalized in tandem, causing a swell of laughter to wash around Yixing.

 _Was_ he home?

 

Long after Chanyeol and Jongin and Sehun had made their way upstairs to their own beds, Yixing woke with a start and his hair matted to his forehead. He didn't remember the nightmare, but he didn't have to; it had been the same one countless times in the days leading up to today. It was better to be left with only the adrenaline, and none of the anxiety. He needed to do something to settle down though, or at least cool down, so he rolled out of bed to shuffle into the kitchen.

Kyungsoo was hunched over the table already, and startled at the soft sound of surprise Yixing made when he found him. Yixing tried to excuse himself, mumbling something about the bathroom, but Kyungsoo urged him to come sit. "There's hot water left," he said as he abandoned his mug at his seat to go to the counter. "What kind of tea would you like?"

"Whatever you're drinking is fine," Yixing said gently as he hesitantly slid into the empty seat beside Kyungsoo's. Kyungsoo must have heard something Yixing didn't with the way that he glanced over his shoulder and chuckled, but neither of them said anything else until Kyungsoo set a second mug down and took up his seat again.

"Since you're up–" Kyungsoo began, but his hesitation choked the words off. The heavy brows Yixing could never forget worried in a way they hadn't since they were much younger.

"What has you awakened?" Yixing said, wrinkling his nose at his own grammar. It would be some time yet before his Korean got back to where it used to be. Kyungsoo continued, unbothered.

"Is it rude of me to ask...what you think you'll do next year?"

Kyungsoo looked deeply into his tea as he asked, but even with Yixing's rusty Korean the true question was obvious: _are you going to re-sign with the company?_ Yixing kept his hands wrapped snugly around a mug of tea he had no intentions of drinking, but the heat, and the prickle of pain, brought another sort of clarity. "I don't know yet," he said simply.

Whatever answer Kyungsoo expected, it wasn't that, judging by the way his gaze jerked up to meet Yixing's, the crease between his brows deeper than ever. Time stopped for a very long time like that, before Kyungsoo kickstarted it again with: "I don't either."

Yixing tugged delicately at the string of his teabag, tracing it around the lip of his mug. "Let's think about next year next year," he said, with a decisiveness to rival Baekhyun's from earlier, insisting he choose a dorm to sleep in for his stay here. "And think about this year this year." Yixing paused for a moment to roughly translate in his head before adding, "'Let's go one step at a time toward the path of our dreams.'"

The silence stretched long enough that Yixing wondered if it was time stopping again, or that perhaps he'd accidentally spoken in Mandarin, or English, instead of Korean. Then relief broke the tension in Kyungsoo's expression, and laughter filled the quiet of the kitchen like distant, rolling thunder. "You sound like a proverb, Hyung."

Yixing laughed a little then too, genuine and airy, as he looked back into his tea. He had no reason to expect Kyungsoo to pick up on his self-reference. The song was old now, and only ever in Chinese. But Kyungsoo's ignorance struck like a flail against his still-fresh wounds from today's other failures.

"You're right," Kyungsoo said softly, the sound of a smile in his voice the only thing that drew Yixing's face back up from his mug. "One step at a time." Again Kyungsoo looked at him in a way that seemed as if he saw much more than Yixing meant to be giving. "I think this year will help me make up my mind," he added. The subtext wasn't quite as clear this time, although from the expectant look on his face, Yixing felt like he should be understanding something more than what he was.

"I think so too," was all Yixing could come up with.

If only the path didn't always feel like one step forward, two steps back.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for K-Pop Olymfics 2019 as part of Team Canon/AR/Future 2. Olymfics is a challenge in which participants write fics based on prompt sets and compete against other teams of writers, organized by genre. Competition winners were chosen by the readers. Responses are no longer accepted, but feel free to view the votes this fic received [here](https://forms.gle/WLQh48XnjTy7Yk6v9). Clearly I had a very different interpretation of the lyrics than everyone else did, but I didn't and don't expect anyone to understand where this comes from and why.


End file.
